Game Over: Sports Tickets & EPA’s Scott Pruitt

Few things can land government officials in trouble faster than getting comped or discounted sports tickets. While former EPA Adminstrator Scott Pruitt was no stranger to scandal, one of his final fumbles in the weeks leading up to his resignation involved questions about how he obtained Rose Bowl tickets earlier this year, and whether he received those tickets as part of a quid pro quo.

According to Pruitt’s former director of scheduling, Millan Hupp,Pruitt bought the tickets from C. Renzi Stone, a member of the Oklahoma University Board of Regents. Federal law prevents government employees from accepting sports tickets as gifts, and requires they purchase them at market value. Questions loom for Pruitt because in addition to being a member of the OU Board of Regents, Stone is also CEO of a marketing firm with clients who currently have petitions before the Environmental Protection Agency, which Pruitt led until last week.

As one Fortune 500 executive recently told us, “Tickets are like petty cash. And when you have millions of dollars of cash sitting around, people are going to do stupid things.”

We know about these scandals because the public has a legal right to peer into the workings of public officials and agencies. But what about private companies? We can tell you from firsthand experience that sports and live event tickets are just as abused by private corporations as they are by government officials. Most companies lack a real system to track how tickets are being used, and they’re just one audit away from their ticket misuse going public.